WhatsApp Update: 8 Features Added To Messenger So Far This Year

Being a popular instant messaging app, WhatsApp updates are getting noticed by millions. Lately, the platform has been receiving many updates including a web client notification feature.

Earlier this year, WhatsApp went free shedding the subscription fee it was charging its users on an annual basis. Check out some of the notable features that are brought to the messenger by means of updates from here.

Get notified when WhatsApp web client is active

The WhatsAppn 2.16.90 beta has a new feature that makes it stand out as it gets a persistent notification appearing when the web client is enabled. This makes sense from a security and privacy perspective. However, this notification appears at the top of the screen like a new message.

To disable the notification, you need to disable all the notifications from WhatsApp. Tapping on the notification will give you the option to log out from the acSourcetive web sessions. As this is in beta, we are not sure if this feature will be brought to the messenger in the next update.

Now, you can reply from notifications

In case, you get a new WhatsApp message, you can reply to it right from the notification. There is a reply button added to the notification to send replies easily. Also, you can browse the camera roll by tapping on the quick camera button within the chat window.

Earlier, it was tough to delete a specific WhatsApp conversation. Now, you can delete any conversation by just long pressing on it from the Chats tab.

Rich text formatting options were added, Settings screen was revamped

Did you know that you can send bold, italic and strikethrough text. Well, you can use the mentioned formatting options by using special characters given here. *bold*, _italics_, and ~strikethroug~.

WhatsApp revamped the Settings screen in a recent update. It changed the Settings menu aesthetically and added some intuitive changes to it. After the removal of the subscription fee, WhatsApp removed the Payment Info option from the settings screen.

Your WhatsApp messages will be secure with encryption

WhatsApp adds end-to-end encryption to secure your messages. It has expanded the end-to-end encryption to all its platforms including videos, chats, group chats, and voice calls. Still, the date, time stamp and phone numbers can be gathered.

This move gives a strong protection to the users. WhatsApp will no more let unencrypted messages to be sent to others. This feature means that the data that is sent can be read only by the sender and the receiver. In between, the data is encrypted heavily.

Document sharing and granular chat deleting options were introduced

WhatsApp introduced an option to copy a link by long pressing. Earlier, it was a bit tough as it required copying the entire message containing the link, pasting it, and editing it. Now, just long press on the URL to copy it.

It is possible to share documents (PDFs) in a conversation. You need to just press the paper clip option and choose Document and the file you need to share.

There is also an option to delete a part of the conversation. Instead of deleting an entire chat, you can choose whether you need to delete everything or just messages that are older than 30 days or six months.